Last Dance
by Lady Altair
Summary: His last dance. Her last kiss. A collection of lasts from the first Order of the Phoenix.


**Title: **Last Dance

**Author: **Lady Altair

**Summary: **His last dance. Her last kiss. A collection of lasts from the first Order of the Phoenix.

**Author's Notes: **So it's halfway through my two week exam period and my civil procedure exam is in the morning. In this most extremely inconvenient time, I decided to take a quick mental vacation from beating subject matter jurisdiction and forum non conveniens into my head (mostly with the aid of a claw hammer) and fix this up. Merry Christmas, here's my present!

* * *

_Last Dance_

It's Marlene's last cigarette, but she doesn't know that. It's not remarkable; it's not even _good. _ She bummed one off some old witch at the bar when she found nothing in her crumpled pack but a few pounds meant to go to the next; it's some old-bag sort of menthol and the taste of it sticks in her mouth. She stubs the remains of the bummed fag, the filter smeared with wine-red lipstick, into the battle-scarred tray and leaves her tab open for tomorrow night. Her mouth still tastes of dirty, smoky mint when she falls.

She's so used to falling, or jumping – the sensation feels the same now, she can't even tell if the step off the edge is voluntary anymore, but it's all so jadedly familiar she really can't tell the difference until she doesn't hit the ground. Marlene knows she's dead because there's someone there to catch her.

* * *

It's Edgar Bones' last bedtime story. Sarah-Margaret is wriggling around on his lap, interrupting the flow of the story to express her dismay with his interpretation of the Cackling Stump: "Mummy does it better." Errol takes the opportunity to heartily disagree by way of a particularly nasty pinch, which gets him sent off to his own room, howling about the unfairness, and wasn't he defending Daddy? Melissa, eleven years old and officially "too old for bedtime stories" is in her bed against the other wall with the Charms textbook they just bought for her upside-down in her lap, still listening.

Edgar has so many things to do, worry fraying the edges of his mind, but he finishes that bedtime story for Sarah-Margaret, tucks her in when it's done, kisses her goodnight, kisses the already-sleeping Melissa on his way out.

"Night, Dad," Errol mumbles sleepily from his darkened room as Edgar passes in the hall. Edgar falls asleep in the half-light of his bedroom, next to his wife, sitting up in bed nursing their newest son.

He's woken in the dark by a wand at his throat, and all the lights, all the lives, have already been snuffed, and it's not the peaceful black of a sleeping house. In the end, he can't think of anything but that story. Nothing else seems important.

* * *

It's Gideon's last dream, and it's not of Marlene. There's nothing of her; she's not lovely and young and yet to be broken, she's not chipped and damaged and wearing barbed wire in her brown eyes. She's not there, not a single flash of her.

He dreams of a day at the beach with Molly and Arthur and their boys, Fabian and Dorie and their theoretical children, and wakes up happy.

* * *

It's Caradoc Dearborn's last row. And Hestia really gives it to him, her face flushed a vivid rose. "Quit! Fucking quit!" she shrieks. "This isn't a game, Caradoc, you can't run around playing vigilante with the Headmaster and some old school lads, it's dangerous! Edgar Bones! His whole family! Dead in their beds, down to their _baby."_ Her shrieking takes on a frightened chill. "You made me want this – this baby, this life. You don't get to toss us both down like chips on a gamble, you _haven't the right_!"

"Oh, and what?" he roars back, "You think we can just live our happy little life? I'm muggleborn, Hestia, they won't just leave me alone if this goes any further! And you talk about the baby? Think they'll let him grow up and go to Hogwarts? Think they'll let him grow up at all, our little halfblood bastard?"

Hestia seizes one of her perfume bottles off the vanity and hurls it at the floor, a scream of incoherent rage mingling with the shatter of glass. "You filthy cur, don't you talk about my daughter that way! You need to quit! You need to quit now, and we need to _leave _if it's going to get so bad!" Her voice quiets, her face growing so hunted and vulnerable that his fury abates and he feels sick. "Please, Caradoc, _anywhere." _There are tears in her eyes and he reaches out; she comes willingly to him, thinking she's won until he whispers into her coal-black hair, "I'm sorry…I can't."

And then she freezes and pulls away, cradles the swell of her stomach and turns away, like she's shielding their child from him and he just _aches _with the unfairness of it all, because he _is _putting her in danger and he _knows _it_. _He just doesn't know any other way and he's never felt so helpless and wrong.

She doesn't say a word as she goes, sweeps with her practiced grace out the door, deaf to his desperate pleas.

It's the last time he sees her. And it's a row.

* * *

It's James Potter's last prank, and he goes out with a whimper. He transfigures the flour to sugar while Lily's baking and only succeeds in ruining his own supper.

He's the one who has to each that sugary meat pasty, and he forces a grin through half of it until Lily laughs and goes back to the kitchen to fix him something else for supper. Harry gurgles at him from his chair, sucking futilely at an empty bottle.

"Old man's losing his touch," he sighs to Harry. He chucks his bottle in agreement.

* * *

It's Dorcas' last kiss, and it's just a habit. Her wedding dress is on the other side of the screen and she's just a bit cross with Fabian for trying to ruin the surprise. She kicks him out of the shop, pecking him quickly to soothe the 'sting of rejection' he's decrying. And then he goes, promising Molly he'll look in on Arthur and the boys, winking at Dorie through the display window as he passes out in the Alley. She turns back to her ivory satin and cream lace, and it's the last time it'll mean anything beautiful, anything but loss.

It's Fabian's last kiss, and it's sticky with sweets. Percy is drooling syrup onto his jumper as he carries him up to bed for his afternoon nap. Fabian kisses his forehead as he pulls the duvet over him, and even that has the film of dissolved Christmas Sugar Quills.

"Nigh', Uncle Fay," Percy slurs sleepily, and he smoothes his hair affectionately.

"Have a good nap, Perce," he whispers back. "I'll see you at supper."

He doesn't.

* * *

It's Benjy Fenwick's last dance, and it's long, long years before his last day. Rosellen's steps have grown stilting, her hands settled more dependently on his shoulders, but her eyes still light up at him, brown forever unwearied, though the hair they once matched has faded grey. It's an unremarkable day, and the song beneath the dance is beyond recall by supper, but Benjy holds his wife in his arms for the moment, and holds the memory when she's gone. A cheap prize, he considers himself as the Death Eaters crow. They can't steal what he'll freely give. He goes to dance with his wife, light steps and dark hair and all the giddy inelegance of a youth no longer lost.

xXx


End file.
